Powerful Penn tops w. hoops

With two minutes left in the game, even Princeton head coach Kevin Morris looked tired.

He rubbed his face hard a few times, looked at the scoreboard and saw that his team was losing to the Penn, 66-49. With a resigned look, he started clearing the bench.

However, to everyone else on the floor, the game was not over for the women's basketball team at that point.

In fact, in spite of eventually losing 71-57, the Tigers never played as if they were about to lose their 19th game of the season.

They never played as if they were about to be reduced to 1-6 in the Ivy League.

And they never played as if they were about to lose their third straight game after a one-point victory over Yale.

They did lose, however, and all of the above became a reality.

Looking at the game stats, it does not appear as if the game should have been such an easy victory for Penn.

Sure, the Tigers had 18 turnovers to Penn's 15, and they only had 25 rebounds to Penn's 28. But such minute distinctions did not make the final difference in the game.

Last night, the game was won — and lost — on the free throw line.

Penn scored 16 points from the charity stripe, after taking 23 attempts. Princeton, on the other hand, had only four chances from the free-throw line, scoring three points.

Not only did fouls hurt the Tigers in points, but it also hurt them in player personnel.

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Two starters fouled out, junior guard Hillary Reser and sophomore forward Maureen Lane. Junior forward Lauren Rigney played with three fouls, and three other players had two apiece. Because of foul trouble, the Tigers may have had to play a more cautious game than they would have liked.

"We ended up playing a perimeter game, even though we knew the game would be decided on the inside," Rigney said. "We definitely shoud have driven more, and we definitely should have been stronger on the inside."

Unfortunately for Princeton, the person who was strongest on the inside was wearing blue and red. Senior All-America candidate Diana Caramanico was the high scorer for the game with 29 points on 11-for-18 shooting.

For the Tigers, no one reached double-digits except for Lane. She netted 23 points on 8-for-17 shooting. The next highest scorer was sophomore forward Lee Culp with eight points.

At certain times throughout the contest, it appeared as if Princeton was primed to stage an upset. The Tigers came out strong in the second half after struggling to a halftime deficit of 41-24. They went on a 10-1 scoring run three minutes into the half, bringing the score to 42-34.

But this is as close as Princeton would come to matching Penn's score.

Even though the Tigers never led the Quakers, they refuse to let the loss discourage them. Rather than dwell on the defeat, they are looking forward to this weekend's contests againts Cornell and Columbia.

"Obviously, it gets hard to keep playing hard and not give up," Reser said. "We just need to find a way to keep our emotion up. We have to find a way to actually care. Eventually, something has got to click."

Even though the game may be over, the season is not — and the Tigers refuse to stop believing in a win until the final buzzer.